Integrated Care: Maturing the Relationship Between Psychology and Primary Care

Integrated primary care (IPC) is an evolving model that describes the provision of behavioral health services within a primary care setting. IPC calls for professional psychologists to adopt an integrated and collaborative approach to care, while delivering a broad range of services at a faster pace, using a limited number of sessions of shorter duration, and more team interactions to address a variety of behavioral health issues. Successful implementation of IPC entails professional developmental growth through predictable stages. By tracing the development of one postdoctoral fellowship training program from colocated to fully integrated, providing case examples, and discussing lessons learned along the way, this article highlights best practices and common barriers to implementing an IPC model for others seeking to develop an IPC approach to training and/or practice.